(Author: Libyan Gazette Editorial Staff)
On Sunday, around 1,100 refugees were rescued on the Mediterranean Sea off the shores of Libya.
11 rescue missions were launched on Sunday to save refugees aboard eight rubber dinghies, one large boat, and two punts, said the Italian Coast Guard.
Proactiva Open Arms, a Spanish non-government organization, launched a search and rescue mission rescuing seven boats with over 700 refugees just over 27 kilometers off the coast of Sabratha.
The refugees were then taken from Proactiva’s boat, known as the Astral, onto the Italian Coast Guard’s vessel which took them to Sicily.
On Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released a report that said this year about 105,342 refugees made it to Italy by boat, many of them coming from Libya. IOM estimates that around 2,726 refugee deaths on the Mediterranean this year.
Since 2014 over 400,000 refugees survived the journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, which has been at the forefront of this humanitarian crisis for the last three years.